Jackson’s eyes fix on the jury... but they never exchange a glance with him
Men and women who will decide player’s fate ignore barrister’s plea to look at his client
PADDY Jackson never dropped his gaze. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the jury in his rape trial, as his barrister delivered a three-and-ahalf-hour closing speech this week.
Yet, over the course of the two days that Brendan Kelly QC delivered that speech, the jury never once exchanged glances with the Ireland and Ulster rugby player.
And, even as the eminent London barrister raised his voice almost to a roar as he implored them to look at his client – who had ‘20 months of his life blighted by the evidence of this poor quality case’ – it appeared the jury opted to ignore the barrister’s pleas.
Instead of looking at Mr Jackson, who was sitting behind a glass screen alongside Stuart Olding, Blane McIlroy and Rory Harrison, they focused their gaze on the lawyer wearing the signature black gown and wig of his profession.
It was an extraordinary reaction to an extraordinary address given in Courtroom 12 at Laganside Crown Court this week. And one that did not escape the attention of Mr Jackson.
Nor, presumably, was it one the rugby player’s father, mother and brother, also did not fail to notice. For they too had looked the three women and eight men in the eye from time to time during the speech.
That 48-page address must havemade uncomfortable, if not unbearable,
Uncomfortable, if not unbearable, listening
listening for friends of the young woman allegedly raped and sexually assaulted, who may also have been sitting in the packed public gallery.
Paddy Jackson, 26, from Oakleigh Park, Belfast, and Stuart Olding, 25 from Ardenlee Street, Belfast deny raping a then 19-year-old after a night out in Belfast on June 28, 2016. Jackson also denies an additional charge of sexual assault.
Their friends Blane McIlroy, 26, and Rory Harrison, 25, have also been charged in connection with the alleged attack. Mr McIlroy from Royal Lodge Road in Belfast, denies one count of exposure while Mr Harrison from Manse Road, Belfast, has pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice and withholding information.
The rugby star’s barrister was direct and unequivocal as he sought to discredit the evidence of the young woman who claims she was raped. He repeatedly used words and phrases such as ‘flawed’, ‘nonsense, utter nonsense’, ‘edit the account’, ‘half cut’, ‘on a mission’, ‘she lied’, of the answers she gave during the eight days she was on the stand.
And at one stage, Mr Kelly maintained the young woman had taken the morning-after-pill in order to portray herself ‘as a classic rape victim’ so her friends would believe she had not been involved in consensual group sex.
He added: ‘Sometimes people lie, that’s why we’re here. Picture the scene: a dark alley. Picture the scene, miles away from people, gagged, locked away… of course you submit.’
This he contrasted with the setting of the alleged rape. ‘This is not frozen. This, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid, is engaging.’
Later, when referring to why the alleged victim had not told doctors and police officers during initial interviews about being orally raped, and also about a woman walking into the bedroom during the alleged rape, the barrister asked the jury: ‘Picture if you were in that situation. Would you keep anything back?’ During the course of the trial, an expert medical witness for the defence, Dr Janet Hall, told the court sexual assault victims give accounts about what has happened to them in a piece-meal fashion. And it also emerged that the alleged victim had contacted the police after her first interview to say she had additional information. But it was another three weeks before investigating officers arranged for her to give this information in a follow-up interview.
Meanwhile, in his closing statement to the jury, prosecuting barrister Toby Hedworth QC said experience shows that sexual assault complainants give their accounts of what happened to them in a ‘piece-meal’ fashion because they have difficulty explaining it to themselves and because of fear, anxiety, genuine confusion and misplaced shame.
And in this particular case he said the alleged victim ‘does not pretend she remembers every detail and in the exact order it happens’.
Meanwhile, Mr Hedworth insisted the woman was not ‘the celebrity bagger as the defence would suggest’. He added: ‘What’s in this for [the complainant], the shame, the indignity of a medical examination?... Knowing what is likely to be deployed against her?’
And as he delivered his speech, the jury carefully studied photos from June 28, 2016, as well as other evidence contained in booklets they had been provided with earlier.
Among those listening in the packed public gallery was a contingent of young women aged in their early 20s. It was not their long glossy hair, and apparent uniform of jeans, short jackets and ankle boots, that made them stand out from the suits, shirts and ties, gowns and wigs. But their youth.
And the fact some, if not most of them, are the same age as the woman at the centre of the trial.
‘Not celebrity bagger as the defence suggests’